Work Text:
Ghost flew back into his Guardian's apartment from the slightly ajar bedroom window and found the lights to be off. EX might have been sleeping in the bed but the sheets were still tucked in and the pillows weren't all jostled. He saw the door slid open some too so EX wasn't in his room, and upon seeing the flickering of a candle he figured that EX was in the living room and might have fallen asleep on the couch, or his chair. So, he floated with a twist to his shell into the hallway and saw him violently slashing a canvas with some paint.
"EX?" Ghost kept his voice down so he wouldn't have to startle him and when the wild expression of his Guardian faced him, he sighed with a sad electronic chirp. EX turned back around, nearly breaking his brush in the process with how tight he gripped it. His strokes were harsh and he'd have to scrape paint off of the floor when he was done here but the rough visage of the former Hunter Vanguard came into view as Ghost floated farther in. He assumed a nightmare had been what triggered this considering how dark it was outside too.
EX took another brush and began to work on some details, not as heavy-handed as before but still just as manic as the last. Ghost wasn't entirely sure what he was trying to do but it was striking and beautiful with the swaths of orange lighting contrasting the blues of his plates. The passion and love felt for the man was clearly there with each stroke of the brush. Ghost knew EX painted, but he never knew just how innately skilled he was at it.
It took some time before EX could even say anything about what was happening but when he did it was soft, and abso
lutely
broken.
"what if i forget what he looks like..."
His shell drooped and he immediately floated over to nudge a mote of light against his Guardian.
"Oh EX... I don't know what nightmare you've had but... You won't ever forget, not ever."
-
EX shook as he tried to finish the last details of Cayde's face. It was hard, a delicate process in which the teals wouldn't blend right, and the lines, his plate lines and the careworn scratches and battle-hardened pock-marks- they weren't cooperating and EX had to grab hold of his arm for stability but it almost made it worse. What he did manage to get right was the cool glow of his eyelights, the warm Solar glow of his smile, the delicate yet sturdy struts of his jaw and the love. And the love and the love and the love and the love of this man who was dead brought back to life on the canvas with every brush stroke he made.
EX was angry, but that anger was wrought from that love he had and the absolute terror of one day having to let him go.
Ghost was watching, moved silent by the raw feelings of passion abrading him. It made him ache for his Guardian but at the same time he was powerless to assuage him. How do you? How do you comfort a man grieving so hard he paints a masterpiece at 2am half asleep and shaking? How do you even begin when he’s curled up on the floor clutching the leg of his easel as if it would manifest Cayde out of the layers of oil and pigment? He forced his way into the little cocoon of darkness between EX’s head and arms and nestled against his shoulder.
“I can’t fix you, but… I’m here EX I always will be.” Ghost was silent a moment as he noticed the hitch of tearless sobs wracking him; he pressed his Light against EX’s. “I love you.” A quiet mantra against his Guardian’s bastion of feelings he never opened up about. He felt a pulse of Light against his own in that infinite swirl of void. He prayed it would be enough…